At times of national crisis it is all too easy for media commentators to jump to glib conclusions. It will therefore come as no surprise to learn that I blame the recent eruption of what the rugby authorities used to term "good-natured horseplay" in our major cities on one thing – the breakdown of the sort of traditional sporting partnership – Trueman and Statham, Beardsley and Lineker, Bruce and Pallister – that once brought stability to the life of youngsters everywhere.

I think we can safely say that it is no coincidence that all this unpleasant thieving of training shoes occurred at the same time Tiger Woods' 12-year relationship with caddie Steve Williams ended with bitter outbursts. "I am not going to speculate on Steve. Those are obviously his feelings and his emotions," Woods said in Atlanta last week, with the sort of deadpan coldness that normally greets a tearful, drunken, late-night telephone call. Mercifully the golfer stopped short of adding: "I love him, but I'm not in love with him", but you sensed it was hanging in the air.

In days gone by when, aside from the odd world war and the occasional threat of nuclear Armageddon, people behaved impeccably, sport was very much built on a foundation of solid, red-blooded, masculine duos. Braces of blokes whose surnames had become inextricable linked over the years, either as a hyphenated whole like Clough-Taylor [whose tearful break-up precipitated the current crisis], by an umbilical 'and' or 'n' such as Hutton and Washbrook, Ramadhin 'n' Valentine, or who were morphed into a single fabulous entity in the manner of Eric Morecambe's celebrated Aussie pace-person Lillian Thomson.

Sadly, such stable relationships are, with honourable exceptions such as Strauss and Flower, are a thing of the past. The search for quick gratification, that besetting vice of our age, coupled with the egotistical pursuit of individualism, has done for them.

Gone are the days of Toshack 'n' Keegan, Hansen-Lawrenson or Lindwall and Miller. The lone striker like the lone parent is increasingly the norm. Barrel-chested centre-forwards who once thrived in conventional two-person relationships now feel happiest in a ménage-a-trois with a couple of svelte and drifting wingers. Fast bowlers, by contrast, are barely satisfied with a foursome, while most slow-bowlers are spinsters in more ways than one.

Over the past decade we have seen apparently enduring relationships publicly fracture. Brendan Ingle had an acrimonious divorce from Naseem Hamed, Sir Alex Ferguson publicly ridiculed former long-term partner Brian Kidd and Lewis Hamilton split up with his dad. At Arsenal, meanwhile, the Adams-Bould back-line tradition of fidelity and big shouting has been replaced with a policy of centre-back swinging that has left Gunners' fans disoriented.

The attitude of the new Hefner-esque sporting age was summed up by US tennis player Peter Fleming. "The best doubles pairing in the world is John McEnroe and anybody," he said in the mid-80s, a time when he was himself being squired about the court by the sweat-banded, racket-basher. Until this year, when he quit over a pay dispute, Fleming was employed by the BBC during Wimbledon fortnight and charged with the important though by no means onerous task of making Sue Barker chuckle fetchingly. Could the Corporation offer any more ringing an endorsement of athletic partner-swapping promiscuity than that? No wonder young people are flailing around confused and looking for direction.

Such is the climate of moral bafflement created by men like Fleming that even those who apparently pine for the days when the most symbolic relationships in football was between Mercer and Allison or Sillett and Curtis rather than Posh 'n' Becks, find it difficult to settle down as part of a duo based on affection and mutual respect. Witness the desperate attempts over the years to pair off fussy bachelor striker Wayne Rooney with someone up front.

Not since the days when Chi Chi, the giant panda at London zoo, was rejecting suitors from all corners of the globe has the search for the ideal mate for a popular public figure caused such national consternation. Manchester United and England have both tried a string of apparently eligible forwards, yet little has been generated in the way of lasting chemistry.

Dimitar Berbatov, Michael Owen, Darren Bent, Carlton Cole, all have been flirted with and then dismissed by football's own fastidious Carrie Bradshaw. Now Sir Alex – a firm believer in his players settling down – has brought in Ashley Young to try his luck. I think this may be the last chance. The burly snarler from Croxteth is no longer a teenage prodigy. If Ashley doesn't work out, Wayne will be left on the shelf. Mark my words.

Forty years ago Rooney would not have been afforded so many options. Laws and social attitudes were less yielding then. Jimmy Hill and Lady Chatterley had not yet ushered in the permissive age. Had Wayne been around in those days he would have made his vows to Tomasz Radzinski at Everton when he was barely into short trousers, and the two would have stuck it out through thick and thicker.

Instead of just running off the minute they hit a bad patch and a leggy Peter Crouch or pert 'n' pacy Jermain Defoe took their fancy, they'd have had to work at their relationship. And I don't think in the long-term either of them would be any less fulfilled. Do you?